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Can I Delete JSON Files From Google Takeout?

Can I delete JSON files from Google Takeout? Yes, after their dates and GPS are written into the photos. Before that, you lose the dates for good.

Yes, you can delete the JSON files from Google Takeout, but only after their dates and locations are written into the photos. The .json files are the only copy of that information for many photos. Delete them first, and those photos keep the download date for good.

So the order is: merge, check, then delete. The rest of this page shows each step on Windows and Mac, and the one case where you keep the files longer.

What happens if I delete a JSON file?

The photo itself does not change. It still opens, at the same quality. What you lose is what Google knew about it:

  • the date taken (photoTakenTime), including any date you corrected in Google Photos,
  • the GPS location (geoData), including a place you set by hand,
  • the caption you typed (description),
  • the original filename (title), when Takeout shortened it.

For a photo straight from a phone camera, the date is usually also inside the file as EXIF, so little is lost. For screenshots, WhatsApp images, scans, downloads and edited copies, the JSON file is often the only record. Those photos then show the day you unzipped the export, and they sort in the wrong place in every app.

There is no way to rebuild a deleted JSON file. The only way back is a new Takeout export, which takes hours to days. How long Google Takeout takes has the numbers. Do I need the JSON files from Google Takeout? explains field by field what each file holds and what breaks without it.

Why most apps ignore the JSON files

Apple Photos, Windows Photos, File Explorer, Finder, and phone galleries read only what is inside the image. They never open the .json file beside it. That is why the export looks undated even though the dates are there. What the JSON files in Google Takeout are shows one opened up.

Step 1: write the data into the photos

This is called merging. You have three honest options:

  • exiftool, free, command line. One command copies photoTakenTime into each photo. It misses cut-off sidecar names and (1) duplicates unless you add extra steps. See the exiftool guide.
  • GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper (GPTH Neo), free, command line, handles the naming cases.
  • A desktop app such as Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer, no command line, on Windows and Mac.

Merging JSON metadata into photos compares the three in detail.

Step 2: check a few photos

Pick five photos that had no date before: a screenshot, a WhatsApp image, a scan, a normal camera photo and a video.

On Windows, right-click a photo, choose Properties, then Details. "Date taken" must show the real date. For videos, look at "Media created".

On Mac, open the photo in Preview, press Command-I, and open the EXIF tab. "Date Time Original" must show the real date. Or import a few into Apple Photos and see where they land in the timeline.

For a whole folder, exiftool lists every photo still without a date:

exiftool -r -if 'not $DateTimeOriginal' -filename -ext jpg -ext heic .

Step 3: delete the JSON files

Keep the original Takeout zips somewhere until you are sure. Then:

On Windows, open the fixed folder in File Explorer, type *.json in the search box, wait for the search to finish, press Ctrl+A and then Delete. Or in PowerShell, inside the folder:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.json | Remove-Item

On Mac, open the folder in Finder, press Command-F, choose "This folder" (not "This Mac"), set the rule to Name contains .json, select all and move to the Trash. Or in Terminal, inside the folder:

find . -name "*.json" -delete

This also deletes the album metadata.json files. They hold album titles and descriptions only, and nothing reads them after the export.

When to keep the JSON files longer

Keep them until the import is finished if the destination reads sidecars itself:

  • Immich with immich-go reads the Takeout JSON during upload.
  • PhotoPrism can read Google sidecars during indexing.

Also keep them if you have not yet decided where the photos go. They cost little space: a few kilobytes each, so 50,000 sidecars are about 100 to 200 MB.

Can I delete them if my photos already show the right date?

Check first which date you are looking at. Explorer's "Date modified" and Finder's "Date Modified" are file dates, and some tools set them without writing EXIF. The original GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper did exactly that. A photo with a correct file date and no EXIF date loses its date again on the next copy or upload. Look at "Date taken" as in Step 2.

The app

Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer does steps 1 and 2 in one run.

It reads every sidecar, including the cut-off names and the (1) duplicates, writes the real date and location into each photo, and reports how many photos matched a JSON file and which did not. Then you can delete the .json files and know that nothing was left behind. The first 500 photos are free. Premium is $19.99 once.

Frequently asked questions

Can I delete JSON files from Google Takeout without losing anything?

Yes, after the merge. Once the date and GPS are inside the photo, the JSON file has nothing left to give.

What happens if I delete a JSON file by mistake?

Only that photo loses its Google date. If it had an EXIF date from the camera, nothing changes. If not, set the date by hand or take it from the same file in a new export.

Should I delete the JSON files before uploading to iCloud or OneDrive?

After the merge, yes. The services ignore them, and they only clutter the folder.

Are the JSON files dangerous?

No. They are plain text files that Google wrote into your own export. They contain no program code.

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